Dr Prudence Tunnadine

Lesley Prudence Dundas Bellam, consultant in psychosexual medicine: born London 5 December 1928; staff, Institute of Psychosexual Medicine 1974-2000, Scientific Director 1990-2000; married 1952 Dr David Tunnadine (three sons, one daughter; marriage dissolved 1978); died Ditchling, East Sussex 15 December 2006.

Prudence Tunnadine played a pivotal role in the formation in 1974 of the Institute of Psychosexual Medicine, and was widely known as a specialist in the treatment of sexual problems.

Occupied in Family Planning work in the 1960s, together with a small band of pioneers Tunnadine realised that patients often brought emotional and sexual distress to the doctor in the guise of physical symptoms. They turned to a psychoanalyst, Tom Main, who, following the methods of Michael Balint, among the first to investigate the psychology of the doctor-patient relationship, had been running training seminars for these doctors.

Specialist psychosexual clinics were started under the auspices of the Family Planning Association and were taken over by the NHS in 1974, together with most of the other clinical services. At this time, the IPM was formed and Main encouraged Prue Tunnadine and some others to lead the seminars. He led groups of these leaders and together with Tunnadine developed the tiered training structure that has continued at the IPM to the present day.

A body/mind approach, which was originally developed in response to women patients, was found to be equally appropriate for the growing number of men who sought help with physical symptoms or sexual difficulties. Tunnadine also ran a private practice in Harley Street

In 1970 she published Contraception and Sexual Life, in 1981 came Sense and Nonsense about Sex and in 1984 the splendid The Making of Love. In this she states that she had carried out over 30,000 consultations over a period of 20 years. She carefully disguised all the cases she used in teaching.

More than anyone else, Tunnadine understood the need to retain and use all the skills of physical doctoring while keeping alive Main's insistence that doctors never know, but must always ask themselves: "What is going on here and now, in the living moment with this one troubled person in front of me, and how can I reflect it back in such a way as to give them insight into their difficulty?" She was very clear about the distinction between this body/mind doctoring and other disciplines such as sex therapy or psychotherapy. The skills she used and the ideas she espoused were specific to doctors and other professionals who have licence to examine the body.

As Scientific Director of the IPM from 1990, Tunnadine continued to hone the skills of psychosexual medicine and to pass them on. It is doubtful whether this unique psychodynamic way of working during the routine medical consultation or in a short series of appointments would have survived without her.

She was born Lesley Prudence Dundas Bellam in 1928 in Chiswick, west London. Her father worked in the clothing business and was also a regular army reservist who volunteered for service at the outbreak of the Second World War, and was commissioned into the Royal Tank Regiment. Prue had been destined for St Paul's School in London, but the war caused the family to move to Sussex, where she attended Chichester High School. After the war her father (by now a lieutenant-colonel) was posted to India, where, on leaving school, Prue joined him for a time, enjoying the social life to the full. When she returned she trained in Medicine at Guy's Hospital.

After her qualification and house jobs she worked as a registrar in gynaecology, with a view to making that speciality her career. However, following her marriage in 1952 to Dr David Tunnadine and the arrival of children, like many women of her generation she turned to Family Planning Clinic work.

After their divorce in 1978, Prue Tunnadine moved to Sussex, later taking up golf and revisiting bridge with the same dedication and enthusiasm that had marked her medical career.

Heather Montford and Ruth Skrine